Google to open Wave by October

100,000 lucky users get next generation of online collaboration

Google's new Wave project, which is designed to be the next step in web interaction with buddies, will be available from September 30th.

However, it will be invite only at the start, with 100,000 lucky people getting their hands on the service.

There will have been around 25,000 developers who will have been able to play with the service by then, but the news of a proper invite list means it won't be too long before the rest of the world gets a play.

Play online

Offering collaborative web browsing, Google Wave lets you look at documents, chat, work and even add in plugins from the likes of Twitter and Wordpress.

The launch is similar to that of Google Voice, which lets users combine all their phone numbers into one, which began life (and actually still is) invite only too.

However, if there's one thing Google knows how to do, it's how to launch a product in beta, so we can only assume when we all get Wave, it'll be a cracker.